Author Archives

Once again, the Obama Administration has needed to announce the delay of a provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The provision that limited out-of-pocket costs to $6350 for individuals and $12700 for families has been delayed for a year… Read More ›

Last August, I wrote a JAMA Forum post about the slowdown in health care spending and speculated about whether the slow growth is likely to continue. The release of 3 new studies on this issue enables us to revisit the… Read More ›

In my “Poised on the Edge of the Fiscal Cliff” blog post of December 18, 2012, I bemoaned the fact that 13 days before the end of the year, Congress had yet to decide what to do about the upcoming… Read More ›

It is the third week of December, and all of Washington is focused on whether the country will fall off the “fiscal cliff” it has built for itself. That metaphor, which is quickly becoming a cliché, refers to the combined… Read More ›

In what has been a great surprise, Medicare is moving—without any discussion or public fanfare—from being an “open-ended entitlement program” to a program that, under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), will be allowed to grow only slightly faster than the… Read More ›

Health care spending has been growing unusually slowly for the last several years, prompting occasional speculation that something unusual is afoot. According to the Office of the Actuary in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), total health expenditures… Read More ›

With the long-awaited ruling by the Supreme Court on the Affordable Care Act (ACA)—notably the Court’s assertion that the individual mandate is constitutional, as well as its finding that the requirement that states expand their Medicaid coverage or lose all… Read More ›